When a film is in aviation genre is a question that the many films created about airplanes and pilots make it possible to answer, by sorting and comparing them to films from other genres. The critical impression, from any cinematic or artistic work of any kind, creates a flood of connections. In order to absorb their influence, one must patiently look for their inclinations towards a particular meaning. Aviation films are characterized as clearly glorifying the myth of aviation, through many flight scenes and meaning in their plot.
The various cinematic theories make it possible to show how the aviation myth is presented in different ways. These theories evolved from each other, in chronological and structural synergy and the subject of aviation can be placed in any of them:
Realism - Aviation is certainly a practical reality. At the beginning of its cinematic documentation, the actual videos uninterpretedly reflected the events. But very quickly they moved from a statement of facts to a systematic presentation of ideas. As early as 1909, through carefully worded titles and by focusing on selected images, the filmmakers were able to create a conceptual image. For example, the victims the air conquest claimed. In this way they exaggerated the dramatic and dangerous dimension of the flight and as a result delegated the character of the pilot to the rank of a hero, a man who is constantly endangering his life.
Formalism - The aviation films are formalistic. According to the formalist conception, photogenicity, or aesthetic quality imparted to photographed objects, is a consequence of how the object is presented using the means of expression of the film and does not depend on the essence of the object or its hidden qualities. Photogenicity evokes the emotional, aesthetic mode of cognition that allows for direct knowledge of the world. In every aviation film created, the various aircraft models, of all types and in all their vehicles, star on the screen and get a long viewing time and a large screen space, in dramatic close-ups of their photogenic parts, in medium shots showing their integration with the crew and long shots showing them pass like rulers over the landscape.
Structuralism - Structuralism expresses in cinema the most distinctive features of aviation, in a way that effectively makes it the undisputed ruler of the silver screen in the competition for the conquest of the viewer's heart. The aircraft is a product with an ideological connection, is in a natural relationship with the government and is designed to serve it. A national decision-making system has turned the aircraft into a basic myth, which is processed into diverse by-products of iconic archetypes, which are in daily use in popular media and popular culture, thirsty for definitions that place man in the right place in social role-playing. In the aviation films, the air crews are in the first circle, the ground crews in the second and the home front in the third circle.
Ideology - Some dictatorial regimes were based on "aerial consciousness", which saw in aviation the appearance of the nation, and led to the creation of films in this genre that emphasize the importance of the nation. In democratic societies, on the other hand, the aviation myth exist within the framework of "aerial awareness", which addresses the individual, operating in the free market economy.
Gender - In aviation movies the viewers are mostly young men, who feel deprived for various reasons. The aviation films and the character of the knightly fighter pilot in particular, were from the beginning also a kind of male counter-reaction to the movement for equal rights for women, which challenged patriarchal society.
Psychology - The cinematic dream industry is founded on psychological principles. Flight scenes replace the stage of shifting in a dream, which is the transfer of attention to a secondary subject. These scenes incorporate the subject of aviation in the plot inseparably. Spectacular aerial passages, which come in the time of turning points in the plot, are meant to be used in these films as a plot power amplifier and they also act as additional dream elements. Many movies start and end with flight scenes, which explain everything without detailing. A study conducted among children showed that when they are given, while playing video, the abilities of superheroes with aviation skills, their desire to help others increases.
According to Lacan, man's initial sense of identity is based on a complete and continuous illusory reflection of himself, which is bigger then him. This unrealistic reflection places the child in a fictional, unbridgeable direction. Lacan likens this initial sense of identity to Freud's "ideal self." Man is constantly in transition between two basic types of consciousness. In the pre-stage he is in the "imaginary" consciousness, which is characterized by the perception of the environment as an indistinguishable duration. In the second stage there is a transition to awareness and a symbolic order of cognition. The focus of the film viewer's identification is the camera's point of view and movement. By moving the camera, the film shift the viewer's point of view in space and time. When the camera movements are combined with aviation scenes, the separation between the pre-stage and the symbolic stage can be overcome. The viewing experience become also a flight experience for the viewer. Gravity, which is identified with the vertical dimension, is negated in the imaginary perspective.
The airplane replaced the human eye as early as World War I, when sophisticated aereial cameras began to provide sharp images of the surface. As photography and editing technologies became more advanced, it was possible to create scenes in cinema in which the pilot performs spectacular actions with the aircraft, that were perceived as pure imagination amplifier. Through the various latest technologies, the connection between the human pilot and the imaginary superheroes is strengthened.
